F-14B Tomcat 'VF-102 Diamondbacks' - corrected Revell kit

[KEi]

Glad to know your Tomcat project is still on-going. Cant wait to see your progress.

 

[Starfighter]

Cheers gentlemen!  It's true that the prices are rather step at the moment - but the kits weren't really cheap when I looked for mine back in 2017. I was lucky to get one from a friend of mine... 

 

Grunticus, the Revell cockpit is totally useless and needs to be replaced IMO. I used the Tamiya tub with home made consoles. The best base for an accurate F-14 still is the Tamiya kit. I f you can get your hands on a pre-1994 version, it even has the early grille type gun vents you need for your IRAF Tomcat. If prices for all of them are more or less identical, I'd go for the Tamiya. If you want easier assembly and if a f*cked up forward fuselage, canopy, intakes, tons of inaccurate rivets and groove lines aren't a problem for you, the Trumpeter may be your choice. 

The Revell kit was interesting as long as it was significantly cheaper than the two other kits. As you may have seen in the thread, its forward fuselage has massive shape issues (way too bottom heavy, nose too long between windscreen and radome) which need to be addressed with help of Tamiya parts... the intakes are a nightmare to assemble and get smooth and aren't quite correct shapewise either (they are not quite high enough at the front seen from sides). My build actually was just an experiment for myself to find out what is needed to make the Revell kit look more accurate with an acceptable amount of work and money. 

 

Anyway, let's get back to the one in progress. Here is a look at version 1 of the ramps fresh from the printer. Like so often, a second version is needed to obtain perfect fit. The parts should be ready later today. Their overall appearance is identical to the parts shown, but some dimensions had to be modified. 

 

 

And the promised look at the painted cockpit. Not my best paintjob; I will certainly get back to it once the intakes are ready.

 

 

I am curious to find out how the finished intakes will look with the new ramps installed - hopefully good enough to finally go ahead with the build. As I am never going to build the Trumpeter F-14D I have in my stash, I have even considered using the Zacto intakes on the Revell Cat; that would probably be "slightly" overkill and I am not sure if they even fit. Fingers crossed I won't need to find out...

[Grunticus]

51 minutes ago, Starfighter said:

Cheers gentlemen!  It's true that the prices are rather step at the moment - but the kits weren't really cheap when I looked for mine back in 2017. I was lucky to get one from a friend of mine... 

 

Grunticus, the Revell cockpit is totally useless and needs to be replaced IMO. I used the Tamiya tub with home made consoles. The best base for an accurate F-14 still is the Tamiya kit. I f you can get your hands on a pre-1994 version, it even has the early grille type gun vents you need for your IRAF Tomcat. If prices for all of them are more or less identical, I'd go for the Tamiya. If you want easier assembly and if a f*cked up forward fuselage, canopy, intakes, tons of inaccurate rivets and groove lines aren't a problem for you, the Trumpeter may be your choice. 

The Revell kit was interesting as long as it was significantly cheaper than the two other kits. As you may have seen in the thread, its forward fuselage has massive shape issues (way too bottom heavy, nose too long between windscreen and radome) which need to be addressed with help of Tamiya parts... the intakes are a nightmare to assemble and get smooth and aren't quite correct shapewise either (they are not quite high enough at the front seen from sides). My build actually was just an experiment for myself to find out what is needed to make the Revell kit look more accurate with an acceptable amount of work and money. 

 

 

Thanks for the nod to the early Tamiya kit for the purpose I intend for it. I will look for the VF-211 boxing for that project. Interestingly, I remember drooling over the box when I was twelve or so, looking at the then-pricetag, saddened that I could never afford it . Can you recommend an aftermarket cockpit for the Tamiya kit with IIAF in mind?

 

I can live with minor inaccuracies, but not the bigger ones mentioned by you and others about the Trumpeter kit, especially for the money.

[Starfighter]

The early F-14A cockpit from Aires should work me thinks? I have used it on my Tamiya Tomcat and fit was very good. 

[Marcel111]

Ben, more cutting going on here than in an orthopedic surgery center but he work is inspiring. Why not just use the Tamiya kit?

 

Having built the Trumpeter Tomcat I know I’ll never be building that kit again. I do want to build another D, any idea how well the Aires cockpit for the Trumpeter kit fits into the Tamiya kit?

 

Cheers,

Marcel

 

 

[Starfighter]

Marcel, I have a Tamiya kit - it's in the works since more than 10 years. The forward fuselage is actually pretty much finished with the Aires cockpit installed and painted and a scratchbuilt front lading gear bay. The intakes are already modified with scratchbuilt ramp actuators and most of the fuselage was scribed.  I think it stalled back in the day because of the fuselage top louvers which I couldn't get right by hand, but I just realized a few weeks ago that I have made 3D printed ones for the Revell kit and they also fit the Trumpeter and Tamiya kit... so it may come off the shelf of doom in the not too far future. I am not really in a mood to spend a lot of time detailing and modifying the main gear wells, though - not sure how to tackle that. It seems the Aires wheel bays for the Trumpeter kit do not fit the Tamiya one. 3D printing could come to help again, but that would require a serious amount of CAD work. We'll see!

 

The reason to build the Revell kit is simply that I wanted to find out what is necessary to correct the look of its nose section. Now I know and as I quite like the overall appearance of the model (and last but not least all the work that went into it), it would be a shame not to finish it. 

[Grunticus]

16 hours ago, Marcel111 said:

Ben, more cutting going on here than in an orthopedic surgery center but he work is inspiring. Why not just use the Tamiya kit?

 

Having built the Trumpeter Tomcat I know I’ll never be building that kit again. I do want to build another D, any idea how well the Aires cockpit for the Trumpeter kit fits into the Tamiya kit?

 

Cheers,

Marcel

 

 

 

I have purchased the Tamiya kit on eBay yesterday and was wondering the same thing. Aires Trumpeter version cockpits are far more abundantly available than the Tamiya version, and the images look identical. Hope someone knows. Better yet, I'll email Aires and ask.

[Marcel111]

7 hours ago, Starfighter said:

Marcel, I have a Tamiya kit - it's in the works since more than 10 years. The forward fuselage is actually pretty much finished with the Aires cockpit installed and painted and a scratchbuilt front lading gear bay. The intakes are already modified with scratchbuilt ramp actuators and most of the fuselage was scribed.  I think it stalled back in the day because of the fuselage top louvers which I couldn't get right by hand, but I just realized a few weeks ago that I have made 3D printed ones for the Revell kit and they also fit the Trumpeter and Tamiya kit... so it may come off the shelf of doom in the not too far future. I am not really in a mood to spend a lot of time detailing and modifying the main gear wells, though - not sure how to tackle that. It seems the Aires wheel bays for the Trumpeter kit do not fit the Tamiya one. 3D printing could come to help again, but that would require a serious amount of CAD work. We'll see!

 

I did like your louvres on my Trumpeter D, so will likely use them on the Tamiya kit... so big thanks! I used the Aires wheel bays in my Trump D but I think they are the root cause of the huge fit issues I ran into with the build since I likely distorted the plastic in trying to fit them. Won’t do that again and frankly I generally cannot see them as the model stands now. Another thanks by the way for the padeyes, looks totally hot, wil need to post some pics.

 

Now that I finally have the Tamiya kit I really like what I see. Scribing the panels on some of the fuselage should be not much more than the rescribing required when fitting all the open panels on the Trumpeter kit, and not having to fix for shape and detail accuracy should make that project far easier. Time will tell, I am really pumped to do another Tomcat.

 

Regarding the Aires cockpits, they don’t make a D pit for the Tamiya kit, hence my question. There is the Squadron resin cockpit for the D but I thought the Aires cockpit was one of the better experiences of my Tomcat build.

 

Cheers,

 

Marcel

 

 

 

 

Edited July 16, 2020 by Marcel111

[Starfighter]

Intense heat and lack of time have slowed down the progress. I am working on the Skywarrior canopy CAD with my friend Bekim but also found some time to test the new Reedoak crew (excellent stuff as usual), to mask the intakes (PITA², among the most annoying stuff I ever did in 30+ years of scale modelling) and to apply a bit of paint to the Tomcat.

 

 

 

 

Albeit there are a few visible touch ups, the paintjob is at an extremely  early stage.  FS36375 and FS36320 are from Mr Paint, FS35237 is from Gunze. 

 

 

Sadly, I found out that some of the decals I intent to use are badly misgregistered and I am not yet sure how to cope with this issue. The affected decals are definitely too small to be painted; if anyone among you has those decals left in his stash and would be willing to part with them, please drop me a message. Would be great if the marked decals would be perfectly registered of course!  Thanks in advance! 

 

[Starfighter]

More progress - the fun part has begun. Quite a few coats of paint have been added, using liquid mask and mottling templates to create a busy surface. Contrast is low as I am trying not to overdo the effect; a first wash will follow soon which then again will be followed by more airbrushing. 

 

 

 

 

[Anthony in NZ]

Nice paint layering effect Ben, really coming to life now!

Beautiful...

[LSP_Mike]

Just what I am looking for to tinker with my Revell Tomcat. Simple steps, easy mods.

[chrish]

Very fine work! 

[Starfighter]

Thanks for your feedback! 

 

Sadly, I have to say "goodbye" to the idea of building a colourful bird - the misregistered decals simply aren't acceptable.

 

 

 

 

Quite a shame, but there is no easy fix for this problem. They are too small to be masked and painted and I am not in the mood to redraw them and have them printed - without guarantee that the shade of red will be the right one. So, a line bird it'll be - which maybe fits my collection better anyway. 

 

The next step was a warm grey wash and heavily thinned Smoke applied by airbrush. Things are starting to become interesting at this point. 

 

 

 

 

The decals went down perfectly on the satin surface which was slightly polished before decal application.

 

 

I then sealed the decals with gloss varnish from MRP before applying a coat of matt varnish - from MRP as well. 

 

I've had problems with MRP matt varnish emphasizing clear decal carrier film by making it somehow "milky"  but I thought I could avoid that by applying a gloss coat first - but how wrong I was! 

 

Look at the carrier film around the "VF-102" logo on the ventral fin - that's not silvering, it's the carrier film becoming opaque when the matt varnish was applied. Same with the square stencil at the right; I already overpainted the transparent carrier film around the "NAVY" wording. I will probably remove those decals, draw masks and paint them. 

 

 

Nose section. The opaque carrier film was addressed where possible and more smoke was applied; I will probably replace the stars'n'bars with painted ones. 

 

 

 

Fuselage top.

 

 

Belly at an early stage. It'll become much dirtier; I also have to address the Phoenix pallets.

 

 

 

In addition, I am facing some problems with the rear fuselage cracking under stress - as you may remember, I had to squeeze it quite a bit to reshape it. I hope I can eliminate those cracks. Stay tuned! 

 

 

[blackbetty]

stellar work, Ben